jung

Congratulations.....takes the pomposity award by a country mile.....Actually retires the trophy. You had a good post there all the way up till the end when you apparently could not restrain yourself.

Yea I find it hard to believe anybody could be comparable to Smith. There are guys that are brilliant defensively but Smith was a magician. There was a hit and there it wasn't. I would be totally shocked if Iglesias even had that potential. For better or worse it does sound like his hitting has to improve.

I would be interested in the Sox seeing what Iglesias has this spring. If he is truly the defensive force he has been portrayed as, then there is the possibility that his defensive prowess will be more important than his offensive deficiencies. It certainly won't be the first time that has happened at SS. There has been few instances in Red Sox history where a position that is inherently important defensively is viewed as one where you can take a guy that really is a liability to the offense. I grew up feeling like the Red Sox invented the 12-8 scoring line.

I tuned in to 15 minutes early to catch Beckett and turned out being 45 minutes to late. Josh apparently came out and was done by 11:30 which caught most of the media hounds off guard as well. Not at all sure what he said as yet but apparently the media guys are shall we say "irritated".

Well we have always had questions about Drew's heart and his willingness to play if there was even a hangnail out of place. If I put that aside for a moment and say that I really can't jump into the guy's skin and know how much pain he is really in, if Drew had stayed on the field more, I suspect he would have been held here in at least the same esteem as Evans as a right fielder. He might not have ever ended up as beloved as Evans. I always had the feeling that Drew had to look down every once and awhile and remind himself of who's uniform he was wearing. Sort of hard to end up beloved as a Red Sox player that way.

Well ya' gotta' get on to steal. Crawford did not get on very much in 2011. If he gets on I assume he will steal more although I am not sure it ever fits well in the Red Sox scheme of things. I am more impressed with his ability to go from 1st to 3rd on a single or his ability to get home on an extra base hit than I am with his steals anyway. The steal is an exciting play but I have never been convinced that it is the most relevant feature of having good speed on the base paths.

Josh could make things much easier on himself if he was not so fixated on his entitlements or so it seems. In my view the problem with Beckett is not his individual performance although if his oft mentioned odd/even year performance continues, that could be an issue this year as well. The problem at least from appearances is that he is the kind of player that thinks that his individual performance allows him his entitlements regardless of what the team is doing, winning or losing. In fact he still seems fixated on his entitlements claiming that the real issue last year was that his "behavior" was reported and became media cannon fodder. He then goes on to point out that the drinking by some members of the 2004 team did not get reported, using that as a means of explaining himself. Beckett totally misses the point. The 2004 team won the WS. The 2011 team suffered the worst collapse in baseball history. While I have nothing to substantiate it one way or the other, I suspect that Beckett's 7th inning departures were frequent, frequent enough to be noticed at least. I think that if Josh tries to make an issue of this in 2012, it will in fact become an issue that will be difficult to deal with and make it difficult for this team to put 2011 behind it. I think V is going to be in a pretty tough spot over a whole host of issues including this one. I am more inclined to think this will be an issue than that it will not because I don't expect this team to go out there and dominate the league. If it works hard and the breaks fall right for them I expect they have a good shot at getting to the post season. However since they will be under a microscope because of last year, if the team is not rolling over the league like some sort of juggernaut and anything like the 2011 behavior rears it head it will end up being an issue. Does anybody on this board think they are going to roll over the league like a juggernaut? From his public comments does anybody think Josh intends changing his behavior from last year? If there is one irony here I think it might be that at least in my view if Josh would simply make a different kind of public comment than the ones he has made so far....one that would lead us to believe he understands that regardless of whether it was reported or not, particularly given the profile of a team struggling to get to the post season his behavior was ill advised and would not be repeated in 2012 then I think those opening day jeers will turn to cheers. Without that, I tend to agree with Muggah. I think he will likely be booed anywhere from an undercurrent of distain to outright full throated booooos.

Hard to imagine this won't be a very challenging year for V. He is performing in a much tougher environment than he had with the Mets. No team in MLB is really under the microscope the Sox are under in normal situations, never mind the year after "bear, chicken and the collapse". On top of that he will have a team with a huge payroll that still has holes, He will be stuck toeing the company line (we are satisfied with the team as constructed). There is every chance that some of the high priced stars that make up that lofty payroll with be gunning for V if he tries to institute changes that suggest to the entitled stars that they are not so entitled after all and there is no surety that Management will back their Manager if push comes to shove. V will deserve a good deal of credit if he gets through this season in one piece. If he gets them to the post season he should consider running for President.

I think if I remember correctly Beckett would often struggle but would for the most part get to the 6th. Along the way he would usually have one blow up inning but was pretty solid for the rest. I am not sure that was as much of a problem as 160 out of Lackey, 82 out of Buch and 37 out of dice. Wake gave them 154 I think. Fine for a 5. But they never really recovered from Buch and dice going down and Lackey really simply being an arm thrown out there every 5th day. When your best two guys are giving you 6 or so and then everybody else is struggling to get out of the 4th that is to many guys out of the pen pitching to many innings. I still have no idea how Aceves did what he did and have to wonder how bad this all would have looked if Aceves had not over achieved to a level that in retrospect seems superhuman when you compare it to expectation.

Make sure to scout out how far past the left field fence you have to park so that your car is not hit by a 500' homer by the opposition. Considering the guys the Sox have to look at this spring, home plate will likely be a launchpad. They have to do it though. They have to work their way through these guys and see what they have.

I would be willing to bet that any teams that did offer Wake a try and particularly the team at the MLB level were NL teams. Sox need to move forward, not look back. Looking at Wake through the perspective of the 2011 pitching staff doesn't make a case for 2012. Don't see what Wake's relation to the 2011 staff has to do with 2012. So he was the best the Sox had in relation to two guys already on the DL and one pitching for no other reason than he could still get the ball to home plate before finally getting TJ'd. As for Wake's ability to out-pitch the dregs that the Sox had left behind him, that is more an indictment of the Sox than it is a rational for bringing Wake forward in 2012. Give Wake credit for some smarts and in reality I am happy that his loyalty to the team paid off in terms of the ability to pitch long enough to get to 200 wins. That is really a tremendous accomplishment mostly reserved for very talented pitchers. But lets not kid ourselves. As the years wore on it is not like he stabilized at a particular level. Each year was tougher than the last. Each year with few exceptions his knuckler would stop knuckling earlier in games than the year before. I for one would be disappointed if they got into a bind and did not find some other way out of it than ringing up Wake's phone number. In the first place the way he framed his retirement decision would likely make it very hard for him to come back. His family wants him home finally. He has earned the right to be there. In addition, the last thing we want to see, is another Manager trying to find a way to get Wake enough starts so that he can attack the franchise win record. Lets not kid ourselves here either. If Wake did come back that would be about the only thing that would draw him back. Geez we are as bad as Sox Management when it comes to letting these guys go.

Who knows! Every once in awhile you run into a team that historically found a particular guy unhitable. Maybe a team like that thinks he can come in and give them an inning or two of relief out of the pen because whenever they faced him they could never hit him. At his age and given how he was deteriorating at the end I would not want to bring him into a game with men on base. Even when he was going pretty good in relief you really wanted to bring him in to start an inning with nobody on instead of bringing him in to take care of the more traditional relief role....with men on base lookin' to put out a fire. If the wind is blowing the wrong way or the knuckler is not knuckling you are not puttin' out any fires with that thing. I would take him at his word that after 19 years and being away from his family he is not ready to go try this with another team. Sounds like he is preferring family over the Sox never mind some other team.

Boy I don't know about Shoppack and Zink. They could not have been around each other for very long if at all. I will try to see if I can find more of a connection between the two of them just for the fun of it.

Tried to see if I could find any history of knucklers in Shoppach's history. I really did not look that hard but nothing stood out. That is likely the other shoe that drops on Wake. Does anybody in the Sox FO want to see a repeat of Salty trying to catch (with his nose apparently) a knuckler again?

Byrd did not formally announce his retirement before that happened. He simply announced that he would take the second half of a season off but never formally announced retirement. You had the impression with Byrd that he would try to return under some scenario of another. I think now that Wake has formally announced he is going to throw the glove in some dark corner of a dusty closet. Hence the Sox would have no reason to believe they could call on him to do anything. I think the formal announcement is the key difference between Byrd and Wake if you are looking for something.

I think what I said earlier will apply here. In my view before Wake gets a call from the Red Sox, some developmental pitcher will get a shot assuming some of the cannon fodder guys that E1 is referring to do not give the Sox any meaningful innings at all. I think Wake is that far down on the possibilities ladder. True some would argue that after the developmental guys that have been mentioned here several times you have to get all the way to Renaudo to find somebody worth a damn. Even with that, I still think a developmental guy gets a shot long before Wake even gets a sniff from the Sox. Remember Wake will have no earthly reason to keep himself prepared to come back and pitch either.

To be honest, one of the reasons I am glad Wake retired is that nothing he said at the end of last season or did this season should tarnish his legacy here in Boston. The guy pitched for 17 seasons here. I don't recall him ever saying a word about being jerked from the bullpen to the rotation and back again save for one year and now I can't even remember what year that was, he has put so many years in the rear view mirror. A couple of those years would have been considered banner years for any pitcher pitching at any time in either league. Hard to imagine when you consider he was a Dan Douquette phone call away from retiring 17 years ago when the Pirates let him go. Should he have tried to stay on both he and the Sox would have garnered more criticism. I can't blame players for trying to stay on as long as they can, at least not much. The organization has to help the process along. Thanks for the years of faithful effort Wake. On balance I think you will agree that the Sox got a bargain on Wake over those years. No team can only carry one catcher so I am not sure that the argument of having an additional catcher for Wake is really valid. How much production would you expect from your backup catcher to begin with. I do think that the sparsity of catchers with real skills behind the plate has diminished to the point now where we think catching the knuckler is an impossible task. For guys that can't catch it, the knuckler just emphasizes an inability to wait for the ball to come to you. To many catchers lunge at the ball regardless of what pitch is thrown but if you lunge at the knuckler you are bound to be over here when the ball is over there.

Look you guys have got to stop jerking Seabeachfred around like this. His health insurance rates just went down today with Wakes retirement. This talk of seeing him come back mid-season is going to drive them right back up again.

Well the biggest hole in the blame the Manager argument is that if you ask the players they will much prefer a Manager that is a "players" Manager, someone that makes them responsible for themselves. This bunch is already grumbling at V's ST plan. The facts of life for managers in MLB is that if push comes to shove they are going and the players are staying. Even with the embarrassment of last season I would not bet on Sox Management supporting their Manager if push comes to shove. It is Sox Management that needs to provide their Manager with a balanced team that has enough guys still playing for their bacon and enough guys that still have some fire in their bellies. Hand a Manager a team stockpiled with entitled stars with long term contracts and unless those guys come together as a team of professionals, regardless of who is Manager then I would not give that Manager a snowball's chance in hell. Coming together as a team of professionals is something that has to be done by the players as a group, themselves. That is not going to be dictated down from the Manager.

This is the "world is all black or all white argument. It argues that any of you guys trying to look at the rotation from the perspective that 700 identified are just suggesting that we pack the season in. Nobody said that and the black or white argument is in this case a specious argument. 700 had restricted his analysis to past Sox rotations. As for the Yanks and their rotation, they also went into the 2011 season with a "terrific" bullpen, not just good, not just very good but an outstanding bullpen anchored by the greatest closer of all time. They had also seen Colon pitch in the off season and knew he had regained his fastball. So Colon was more a gamble regarding his weight and his reconstructed knee. There was no question that he could pitch at that point and his weight was down 30 lbs. So Colon really does not figure into the equation and whatever you want to say about AJ you can't say the guy does not eat innings. I think he finished 2011 with something like 192 and that was not out of character for him. Again we are valuing these rotations at the start of the season when everything is a bunch of possibilities. The Yanks could figure that AJ would likely eat innings again, they knew what they had in Colon and the certainly knew what they had in CC. 4 and 5 were definite gambles and if you want to look at the 4 and 5 from the perspective of innings they left a good many innings left out there to pitch. However they left them to a terrific BP. Do you rate the Sox BP today what the Yanks had for a pen starting 2011? I don't see it and if either Aceves or Bard end up in the pen, it likely means the rotation is that much weaker at the start of the season or it means that one of them did not cut it as a starter and we had to move somebody else into the rotation. Pick your poison. Since you appear to equate less than giddy optimism as a view that we should just pack the season in I am going to assume that your position is that they are a shoe in for the WS since that is the other end of the "world is black or white" argument.

The interesting thing about this whole argument is that all we have to do is go back one year to see what happens if a couple of your starters are out there getting blown up by the 3rd inning. You have your Manager running the bullpen out there early in those games so that they are gassed even when called upon later in games. Can you imagine what that would have looked like last year if Aceves did not have a big S stamped on his undershirt last year. All we can talk about at this stage of the game is possibilities. But, does the rotation we are starting the year with this year instill buckets of confidence that we will not be running the bullpen out there early in games again this year? If you have a great pen you can probably tolerate two guys in the rotation giving you less than 200 innings. You should not expect your 5 to give you 200 innings and should be grateful for any number over 150 from him. If your 4 is more like a 5, now your average good to very good pen is going to be in trouble. Your asking them to give you 50 more innings without even considering anything happening to the 1,2 or 3 guys in the rotation. As 700's listing of opening day rotations suggests, unless some miracle happens between now and opening day, this is going to look like the shakiest rotation we have started the year with in the past several years. Remember 700 is not talking about the result in hindsight for each year. He is talking about expectations for the given rotation at the start of the year. Does not mean that every starter is going to get hurt and that is I think really 700's point. Given the lack of proven performance out of the 4 and 5 starters we are likely to start the season with, would it be that much of a surprise if by season end we were not sitting here saying that the gamble taken in those two rotation spots did not work out and sunk the BP again this year? or...... Do you think it more likely that both our 4 and our 5 will give us the innings one would normally expect for a 4 and a 5? Now you can overlay onto that the possibility that nothing happens to your 1,2 and 3 and they make it through the entire season without spending any time on the DL. To counter that you can think about the possibility that you pick up a real deal addition to the rotation at the trading deadline. It is all possibility but I am not brimming with confidence. I am brimming with interest to see how it all works out but I am not brimming with confidence.

Drew is a good example of the elevated intensity of the post season. Opposing pitchers would pitch more carefully to hitters hitting in front of Drew. When they got to Drew with men on base, Drew became the guy that they were more inclined to pitch to as they were loath to walk him. Can't take it away from him though. He did come through many times in those situations. Make no mistake though. He was for the most part getting some good pitches to hit. He just did more with them in the post season than he did in the regular season.

I am absolutely OK with what the expectations should be for a 5 guy. I am a bit more concerned that if the Sox put either of Bard or Aceves in the pen we start the year with what I guess you could call a 6 in our 5 spot and a 4 that has never started at this level before or really any professional baseball level successfully. Probably if I had my way and that is how we started the year I would prefer to see some young guy that we have been developing end up in that spot than seeing one of the retreads end up there. At least if a young development guy gets the spot I can consider it progress on the pitching development front.

I don't think the issue of pitching depth is that hard to understand. What is likely a little difficult to swallow is how early on the Sox will be relying on their pitching "depth". I think many are hoping that either Bard or Aceves remain in the pen but in reality I think we are likely going to be disappointed if one of the guys that have been brought in during the past few months ends up in the rotation someplace. As it stands now unless both Bard and Aceves go to the rotation then one of the "depth" guys has to go to the rotation. The Sox will likely not start the season with a real deal #4 or a real deal #5. Hard to call either Bard or Aceves solid starters when neither has done it before. However that is likely the best option because if one of them ends up in the pen the Sox start the season with one of the depth guys in the 5 hole, before anybody spends a day on the DL. Frankly while we are on that topic I think it would be more of a stretch to suggest that all of the opening day rotation guys will make it through the season. It does not take a crystal ball to believe the odds are better that one or more of them will end up on the DL than not. The alternative to all of these other options (hoping Fred has his oxygen mask handy) is that they bring back Wakefield into that 5 spot. If that is the case, Fred will not be the only guy that should be kept away from any sharp implements. In fact if that happens both Fred and I may be on the same bus on the way to some clinic for a good long rest and break from severe emotional and phycological trauma.

For a team with that much "talent" or purported talent to have gotten off the the start that the Sox got off to was inexcusable. As I said earlier, maybe playing 500 ball OK, even 400 ball, OK, 142 ball....sorry....inexcusable.